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PART I :
PRELIMINARY
1. Short title, extent and commencement
(1) This Act may be called the 1[***] Registration Act, 1908.
2[(2) It extends to the whole of India except the State of Jammu and Kashmir:
PROVIDED that the State Government may exclude any district or tracts of country from its operation.]
(3) It shall come into force on the first day of January, 1909.
2. Definitions
In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context-
(1) "addition" means the place of residence, and the profession, trade, rank and title, (if any) of a person described, and, in the case of 3[an Indian], 4[***] his father's name, or where he is usually described as the son of his mother, then his mother's name;
(2) "book" includes a portion of a book and also any number of sheets connected together with a view of forming a book or portion of a book;
(3) "district" and "sub-district" respectively means a district and sub-district formed under this Act;
(4) "District Court" includes the High Court in its ordinary original civil jurisdiction;
(5) "endorsement" and "endorsed" include and apply to an entry in writing by a registering officer on a rider or covering slip to any document tendered for registration under this Act;
(6) "immovable property" includes land, buildings, hereditary allowances, rights to ways, lights, ferries, fisheries or any other benefit to arise out of land, and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything which is attached to the earth, but not standing timber, growing crops nor grass;
5[(6A) "India" means the territory of India excluding the State of Jammu and Kashmir;]
(7) "lease" includes a counterpart, kabuliyat, an undertaking to cultivate or occupy, and an agreement to lease;
(8) "minor" means a person who, according to the personal law to which he is subject, has not attained majority;
(9) "movable property" includes standing timber, growing crops and grass, fruit upon and juice in trees, and property of every other description, except immovable property; and
(10) "representative" includes the guardian of a minor and the committee or other legal curator of a lunatic or idiot.
PART II : OF THE REGISTRATION-ESTABLISHMENT
3. Inspector-General of Registration
(1) The State Government shall appoint an officer to be the Inspector-General of Registration for the territories subject to such government:
PROVIDED that the State Government may, instead of making such appointment, direct that all or any of the powers and duties hereinafter conferred and imposed upon the Inspector-General shall be exercised and performed by such officer or officers, and within such local limits, as the State Government appoints in this behalf.
(2) Any Inspector-General may hold simultaneously any other office under the Government.
4. 6[Branch Inspector-General of Sindh]
5. Districts and sub-districts
(1) For the purposes of this Act, the State Government shall form districts and sub-districts, and shall prescribe, and may alter, the limits of such district and sub-districts.
(2) The districts and sub-districts formed under this section, together with the limits thereof, and every alteration of such limits, shall be notified in the Official Gazette.
(3) Every such alteration shall take effect on such day after the date of the notification as is therein mentioned.
6. Registrars and Sub-Registrars
The State Government may appoint such persons, whether public officers or not, as it thinks proper, to be Registrars of the several districts, and to be Sub-Registrar of the several sub-districts, formed as aforesaid, respectively.
7. Offices of Registrar and Sub-Registrar
(1) The State Government shall establish in every district and office to be styled the office of the Registrar and in every sub-district an office or offices to be styled the office of the Sub-Registrar or the offices of the Joint Sub-Registrars.
(2) The State Government may amalgamate with any office of a Registrar any office of a Sub-Registrar subordinate to such Registrar, and may authorise any Sub-Registrar whose office has been so amalgamated to exercise and perform, in addition to his own powers and duties, all or any of the powers and duties of the Registrar to whom he is subordinate:
PROVIDED that no such authorisation shall enable a Sub-Registrar to hear an appeal against an order passed by himself under this Act.
8. Inspectors of Registration offices
(1) The State Government may also appoint officers, to be called Inspectors of Registration offices, and may prescribe the duties of such officers.
(2) Every such Inspector shall be subordinate to the Inspector-General.
9. 7[Military cantonments may be declared sub-districts or districts]
10. Absence of Registrar or vacancy in his office
(1) When any Registrar, other than the Registrar of a district including a Presidency-town, is absent otherwise than on duty in his district, or when his office is temporarily vacant, any person whom the Inspector-General appoints in this behalf, or, in default of such appointment, the Judge of the District Court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the Registrar's office is situate, shall be the Registrar during such absence or until the State Government fills up the vacancy.
(2) When the Registrar of a district including a Presidency-town is absent otherwise than on duty in his district, or when his office is temporarily vacant, any person whom the Inspector-General appoints in this behalf shall be the Registrar during such absence, or until the State Government fills up the vacancy.
11. Absence of Registrar on duty in his district
When any Registrar is absent from his office on duty in his district, he may appoint any Sub-Registrar or other person in his district to perform, during such absence, all the duties of a Registrar except those mentioned in sections 68 and 72.
12. Absence of Sub-Registrar or vacancy in his office.
When any Sub-Registrar is absent, or when his office is temporarily vacant, any person whom the Registrar of the district appoints in this behalf shall be Sub-Registrar during such absence, or until 8[the vacancy is filled up].
13. Report to State Government of appointments under sections 10, 11 and 12
(1) 9[***] All appointments made under section 10, section 11 or section 12 shall be reported to the State Government by the Inspector-General.
(2) Such report shall be either special or general, as the State Government directs.
10[***]
14. Establishments of registering officers
11[***]
(2) The State Government may allow proper establishments for the several offices under this Act.
15. Seal of registering officers
The several Registrars and Sub-Registrars shall use a seal bearing the following inscription in English and in such other language as the State Government directs:
"The seal of the Registrar (or of the Sub-Registrar) of".
16. Register-books and fire-proof boxes
(1) The State Government shall provide for the office of every registering officer the books necessary for the purposes of this Act.
(2) The books so provided shall contain the forms from time to time prescribed by the Inspector-General, with the sanction of the State Government, and the pages of such books shall be consecutively numbered in print, and the number of pages in each book shall be certified on the title-page by the officer by whom such books are issued.
(3) The State Government shall supply the office of every Registrar with a fire-proof box, and shall in each district make suitable provision for the safe custody of the records connected with the registration of documents in such district.
PART III : OF REGISTRABLE DOCUMENTS
17. Documents of which registration is compulsory
(1) The following documents shall be registered, if the property to which they relate is situate in a district in which, and if they have been executed on or after the date on which, Act No. XVI of 1864, or the Indian Registration Act, 1866, or the Indian Registration Act, 1871, or the Indian Registration Act, 1877 or this Act came or comes into force, namely:-
(a) instruments of gift of immovable property;
(b) other non-testamentary instruments which purport or operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of the value of one hundred rupees, and upwards, to or in immovable property;
(c) non-testamentary instruments which acknowledge the receipt or payment of any consideration on account of the creation, declaration, assignment, limitation or extinction of any such right, title or interest; and
(d) leases of immovable property from year to year, or for any term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent;
12[(e) non-testamentary instruments transferring or assigning any decree or order of a court or any award when such decree or order or award purports or operates to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of the value of one hundred rupees and upwards, to or in immovable property:]
PROVIDED that the State Government may, by order published in the Official Gazette, exempt from the operation of this sub-section any leases executed in any district, or part of a district, the terms granted by which do not exceed five years and the annual rent reserved by which do not exceed fifty rupees.
(2) Nothing in clauses (b) and (c) of sub-section (1) applies to-
(i) any composition-deed; or
(ii) any instrument relating to shares in a joint Stock Company, notwithstanding that the assets of such company consist in whole or in part of immovable property; or
(iii) any debenture issued by any such company and not creating, declaring, assigning, limiting or extinguishing any right, title or interest, to or in immovable property except insofar as it entitles the holder to the security afforded by a registered instrument whereby the company has mortgaged, conveyed or otherwise transferred the whole or part of its immovable property or any interest therein to trustees upon trust for the benefit of the holders of such debentures; or
(iv) any endorsement upon or transfer of any debenture issued by any such company; or
(v) any document not itself creating, declaring, assigning, limiting or extinguishing any right, title or interest of the value of one hundred rupees and upwards to or in immovable property, but merely creating a right to obtain another document which will, when executed, create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any such right, title or interest; or
(vi) any decree or order of a court 13[except a decree or order expressed to be made on a compromise and comprising immovable property other than that which is the subject-matter of the suit or proceeding;] or
(vii) any grant of immovable property by government; or
(viii) any instrument of partition made by a revenue-officer; or
(ix) any order granting a loan or instrument of collateral security granted under the Land Improvement Act, 1871, or the Land Improvement Loans Act, 1883; or
(x) any order granting a loan under the Agriculturists Loans Act, 1884, or instrument for securing the repayment of a loan made under that Act; or
14[(xa) any order made under the Charitable Endowments Act, 1890, (6 of 1890) vesting any property in a Treasurer of Charitable Endowments or divesting any such treasurer of any property; or]
(xi) any endorsement on a mortgage-deed acknowledging the payment of the whole or any part of the mortgage-money, and any other receipt for payment of money due under a mortgage when the receipt does not purport to extinguish the mortgage; or
(xii) any certificate of sale granted to the purchaser of any property sold by public auction by a civil or revenue-officer.
15[Explanation: A document purporting or operating to effect a contract for the sale of immovable property shall not be deemed to require or ever to have required registration by reason only of the fact that such document contains a recital of the payment of any earnest money or of the whole or any part of the purchase money.]
(3) Authorities to adopt a son, executed after the 1st day of January, 1872, and not conferred by a will, shall also be registered.
18. Documents of which registration is optional
Any of the following documents may be registered under this Act, namely:-
(a) instruments (other than instruments of gift and wills) which purport or operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of a value less than one hundred rupees, to or in immovable property;
(b) instruments acknowledging the receipt or payment of any consideration on account of the creation, declaration, assignment, limitation or extinction of any such right, title or interest;
(c) leases of immovable property for any term not exceeding one year, and leases exempted under section 17;
16[(cc) instruments transferring or assigning any decree or order of a court or any award when such decree or order or award purports or operates to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of a value less than one hundred rupees, to or in immovable property;]
(d) instruments (other than wills) which purport or operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any right, title or interest to or in movable property;
(e) wills; and
(f) all other documents not required by section 17 to be registered.
19. Documents in language not understood by registering officer
If any document duly presented for registration be in a language which the registering officer does not understand, and which is not commonly used in the district, he shall refuse to register the document, unless it be accompanied by a true translation into a language commonly used in the district and also by a true copy.
20. Documents containing interlineations, blanks, erasures or alterations
(1) The registering officer may in his discretion refuses to accept for registration any document in which any interlineation, blank, erasure or alteration appears, unless the persons executing the document attest with their signatures or initials such interlineation, blank, erasure or alteration.
(2) If the registering officer registers any such document, he shall, at the time of registering the same, make a note in the register of such interlineation, blank, erasure or alteration.
21. Description of property and maps or plans
(1) No non-testamentary document relating to immovable property shall be accepted for registration unless it contains a description of such property sufficient to identify the same.
(2) Houses in towns shall be described as situate on the north or other side of the street or road (which should be specified) to which they front, and by their existing and former occupancies, and by their numbers if the houses in such street or road are numbered.
(3) Other houses and land shall be described by their name, if any, and as being the territorial division in which they are situate, and by their superficial contents, the roads and other properties on which they abut, and their existing occupancies, and also, whenever it is practicable, by reference to a government map or survey.
(4) No non-testamentary document containing a map or plan of any property comprised therein shall be accepted for registration unless it is accompanied by a true copy of the map or plan, or, in case such property is situate in several districts, by such number of true copies of the map or plans as are equal to the number of such districts.
22. Description of houses and land by reference to government maps of surveys
(1) Where it is, in the opinion of the State Government, practicable to describe houses, not being houses in towns, and lands by reference to a government map or survey, the State Government may, by rule made under this Act, require that such houses and lands as aforesaid shall, for the purposes of section 21, be so described.
(2) Save as otherwise provided by any rule made under sub-section (1), failure to comply with the provisions of section 21, sub-section (2) or sub-section (3), shall not disentitle a document to be registered if the description of the property to which it relates is sufficient to identify that property.
PART IV : OF THE TIME OF PRESENTATION
23. Time for presenting documents
Subject to the provisions contained in sections 24, 25 and 26, no document other than a will shall be accepted for registration unless presented for that purpose to the proper officer within four months from the date of its execution:
PROVIDED that a copy of a decree or order may be presented within four months from the date on which the decree or order was made or, where it is appealable, within four months from the day on which it becomes final.
17[23A. Re-registration of certain documents
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this Act, if in any case a document requiring registration has been accepted for registration by a Registrar or Sub-Registrar from a person not duly empowered to present the same, and has been registered, any person claiming under such document may, within four months from his first becoming aware that the registration of such document is invalid, present such document or cause the same to be presented, in accordance with the provisions of Part VI for re-registration in the office of the Registrar of the district in which the document was originally registered; and upon the Registrar being satisfied that the document was so accepted for registration from a person not duly empowered to present the same, he shall proceed to the re-registration of the document as if it has not been previously registered, and as if such presentation for re-registration was a presentation for registration made within the time allowed therefor under Part IV, and all the provisions of this Act, as to registration of documents, shall apply to such re-registration; and such document, if duly re-registered in accordance with the provisions of this section, shall be deemed to have been duly registered for all purposes from the date of its original registration:
PROVIDED that, within three months from the twelfth day of September, 1917, any person claiming under a document to which this section applies may present the same or cause the same to be presented for re-registration in accordance with this section, whatever may have been the time when he first became aware that the registration of the document was invalid.]
24. Documents executed by several persons at different times
Where there are several persons executing a document at different times, such document may be presented for registration and re-registration within four months from the date of each execution.
25. Provision where delay in presentation is unavoidable
(1) If, owing to urgent necessity or unavoidable accident, any document executed, or copy of a decree or order made, in 18[India] is not presented for registration till after the expiration of the time hereinbefore prescribed in that behalf, the Registrar, in cases where the delay in presentation does not exceed four months, may direct that, on payment of a fine not exceeding ten times the amount of the proper registration-fee, such document shall be accepted for registration.
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